Compromised
by Goody-Goodie
Summary: For once Jensen isn't on the front lines during a mission, but he still finds a way to get into trouble.
1. Things that should not be touched

**Title:** Compromised 1/?  
**Rating:** PG-13 (violence and swearing)  
**Summary**: For once Jensen isn't on the front lines during a mission, but he still finds a way to get into trouble.  
**Disclaimer**: Not mine, which is sad. No profit, even sadder.  
**Author's notes**: I have fallen in obsessive love with this fandom and I hope you guys enjoy my first foray into Losers ficdom. Movie-verse (as I just finished the comics and, wow, just a little different!). It's mainly Jensen-centric with some Cougar badassery coming up later! Enjoy!

* * *

"All right Team Leader, you are clear to head up to the Penthouse. According to the security feeds there are three security guards waiting, as predicted. I'm sure it's nothing you and our new chica can't handle though."

Jensen leaned back in his chair after making his transmission and waited for the rebuttal from the other end. For once he got to relax on the job as he wasn't the one risking his neck by breaking into a secure building alone and he planned to enjoy it. He remembered when Clay had asked if Jensen could hack into the security systems at GenuGlobe Industries to get the information about Max they were sure they were holding. Jensen had answered with an enthusiastic, "Definitely. But not in person."

After explaining that the security in the building was so high tech that he wouldn't be able to break it with just a laptop and a cover story, Clay had conceded that Jensen needed to stay behind at the rendezvous point and run his hacking from an elaborate, non-portable computer he had built specifically for high levels hacks while the rest of them infiltrated the building a mile away.

Aisha seemed especially unhappy about being on the front lines of the break in.

"Hey Jensen, remember when I told you about my ear collection? Call me 'chica' again and I'll be adding a new one to it."

"Play nice," Clay ordered as he and Aisha travelled up the elevator to the penthouse, both of them pulling out flash grenades to use on the guards.

"Yeah, you have to be nice to me as I'm the only reason you haven't tripped about a dozen alarms that would have sent a small army running in your direction with guns a blazin' otherwise. Then again, knowing you, you'd probably like that," Jensen replied, feeling cocky with his mile of distance safety buffer currently between him and Aisha.

"Okay, we're almost at the Penthouse," Clay interrupted. "Coug, you got eyes on the floor?"

"Si," Cougar answered and that's all they needed to know he was in position in the building down the street, scope trained on the windows of the floor Aisha and Clay would be stopping at.

"Pooch, transportation?"

"I'm all set around the corner, doesn't look like anyone's noticed me. I'll pull up when you're coming down," Pooch answered.

"Well then, I guess that just leaves us," Clay said to Aisha with a smirk as they both looked up to see the numbers above the elevator quickly reaching the penthouse.

"Let's do it then," Aisha suggested and they both pulled the pins on their flash grenades just as the elevator doors chimed open. Tossing the explosives out immediately they both pushed into the corner of the elevator and closed their eyes to block out the sulfur flash. In the hallway they heard surprised shouting from the guards followed by screams of pain as they were blinded by the sudden explosion.

The two stepped out of the elevator, tranquilized the blinded guards and moved swiftly down the hall that opened up in front of them that led to a door locked with swipe card access only.

"Jensen, we're at the first door," Clay reported.

"Swipe the RFID card I gave you," Jensen said. As Clay did so Jensen's computer was fed with streams of code and information from the card reader and he typed furiously.

Back at the building, Aisha tapped her foot impatiently, hating to wait and really hating to have to rely on Jensen to do a lot of the leg work of this break in from so far away.

"And … open sesame," Jensen announced a few seconds later just as the indicator light switched to green. Clay pulled the door open and they both went in to reveal a huge server farm with almost a dozen massive towers, all storing crucial information of some kind.

"All right, we're in," Clay reported and pulled the external hard drive Jensen had given him out of a side pocket. "I'm plugging in your drive."

"Excellent. All right, even the internal servers have impressive encryption on them so I'm going to need at least two minutes to hack this to make sure it can't get traced," Jensen told them. "Please don't touch anything until I'm done."

"Just make it quick Jensen," Clay ordered.

"Always trying to rush perfection," Jensen muttered, already at work on the codes streaming in front of him. Meanwhile, Aisha had her gun drawn and was doing a sweep of the server room from front to back. Their intel had said it would be empty this late at night but she liked to be sure. Clay stayed to watch the numbers scroll by on the monitor, but nodded to her as she disappeared around a bay of servers.

"All bow down and worship the master of the hack … and, uplink. I'm through. Good work baby."

"Excuse me," Clay said deeply, eyebrows raised.

"Oh uh … not you baby … uh, boss, I was talking to Nancy here. Nancy-baby. She did a good job," Jensen explained hastily and could hear Pooch laughing from the car. They all knew of course that Nancy was what Jensen had named the computer he built and was now patting fondly back at the warehouse. "She ran like a trooper. Just need another two minutes to upload the information and … what the hell?"

Around the corner from Clay, Aisha was slinking into the darkest end of the room and was pressed up tightly against one of the servers as a force of habit.

"Jensen, what's going on?" Clay demanded.

"No, no, no!" Jensen was muttering. "I told you not to touch anything! I was very clear! I've got alerts popping up all over the place!"

"We didn't touch anything!" Clay yelled back then looked at Aisha to confirm.

She shrugged, "I leaned against a wall. Now what's happening?"

"Dammit. The servers are _very_ temperature sensitive. Your skin contact sent up a red flag with the temperature controls, which sent up a red flag with the diagnostic system, which will send an alert to main security next door and so on and so forth until you've got a couple dozen armed Par Sec security guards breathing down your neck!" Jensen explained in a fury.

"Screw the explanations Jensen, what do we do?" Pooch demanded from the street as he turned on the ignition of their getaway van.

"All right, Clay, leave the drive plugged in, I'll keep downloading, you two get out of there. I'm going to try to trace and delete each alert as it goes out, hopefully before it ever reaches a human eye, but no guarantees. Watch your backs!"

"You heard him. Come on," Clay said, pushing Aisha out the door first as they ran for the elevator and hit the down button. "Pooch, be ready for us."

"You know it. Tell me when you're near the lobby, I'm going to do a pull up, get us out of here as fast as possible."

The plan hit a snag however when the elevator abruptly stopped on the 24th floor. Clay and Aisha shared a look of concern before Clay spoke into his comm.

"Jensen, the elevator's not moving, anything you can do about that?"

"Dammit. Give me a second," the hacker requested but didn't sound hopeful.

"We don't have seconds, get us out of here!" Aisha demanded, frustrated by the idea of being trapped.

"Hey! I am trying to type faster than information travels! Now back off!" Jensen yelled back, then closed his eyes in resignation from his empty room at their warehouse rendezvous. A frontal assault hack was his only choice.

Clay almost laughed at the anger that appeared on Aisha's face from being yelled at by Jensen of all people, but now was not the time.

"Pooch, Coug, how's it looking out there?" he asked instead.

"I don't see any movement yet. Unless they're coming in very stealth no one's coming in after you as far as I can tell," Pooch answered.

"Same," Cougar added, not seeing any additional men from his vantage point as he scoured the ground through his rifle scope.

Back at the rendezvous Jensen felt dirty and classless doing such a straightforward, ugly hack job but time was of the essence and there was no place for art in his work at the moment.

In the elevator time was ticking by and Clay could see that Aisha was about to start yelling again, but Jensen spoke first.

"That should do it. You guys moving yet?"

They both looked up to see the numbers above them starting to change as they dropped.

"Yeah, we're moving, good work."

"Finally," Aisha added, mumbling.

Jensen bit back his retort as he was still working furiously to stop alerts and alarms from popping up all over the place in the building, even as he mentally pictured a clock above his own head counting down how much time he had. Knowing Par Sec security, not much.

"Whoa guys, we got dudes heading to the lobby with guns," Pooch suddenly reported. "There's only six or so right now but I'm betting they got friends on the way. They're staking out the elevator banks."

"I'm up for it," Aisha told Clay, cocking her gun.

"Let's see if we can avoid a fight where we start off backed into a corner. Jensen, we set up for Exit B?" Clay asked.

Jensen was tempted to swear but held it in, picturing his clock ticking down as he answered, "Yeah, I'll cancel your elevator stop in the lobby and send you straight to the parking garage."

"Pooch, you know where to go," Clay instructed.

"On my way," Pooch answered. "Jensen, am I going to have any trouble getting through the garage doors?"

"You guys don't ask for much do you?" Jensen mumbled as he typed furiously to try to cover all his bases.

"That wasn't an answer Jensen!" Pooch scolded him as he rounded the corner.

"You'll have to take out the guard but I can make sure the doors open," Jensen promised. "They're going to be coming out of the elevator on the lower parking level, so once you get in you'll have to go down a level."

"Got it," Pooch answered and they could all hear the safety of a gun being released over the comm lines.

Back in the elevator the doors opened and Clay and Aisha peered out cautiously.

"Looks clear," Clay mumbled, gun drawn as they both slunk around corners in the shadowy recesses of the garage.

"Pooch, your six," Cougar said over the comm line, obviously having spotted something from his vantage point.

"Yeah, I see them," Pooch answered. "Clay, I got dark SUV's behind me and they don't look friendly. I'm coming in but I might have company."

"Understood. Jensen, after you open the doors for Pooch can you lock 'em down again?" Clay asked.

"Yeah, shouldn't be a problem, especially since I don't really have to worry about these alarms anymore. Damage is done. Doors are open Pooch."

"I see them," Pooch answered from outside and they all heard gunshots being fired and returned on the other end. "Sons of bitches didn't even let me shoot first. Close it down Jensen, now!"

"On it!"

"I'm coming to you guys," Pooch reported but Aisha huffed.

"Great, but with an army at the doors that's not going to help us get out of here. We should go to Exit C," she suggested forcefully.

Clay nodded and pulled out the electronic tablet with the maps they needed for Exit C downloaded onto it.

"All right Pooch, we're going to Exit C. Once you get down here we'll break out the C4. Coug, we're not gonna need cover underground, fall back and head to the rendezvous."

"Negative! Do not go to rendezvous!" Jensen piped in suddenly, still typing furiously as he worked at locking down all the doors to the building to give the team more time to escape. "Rendezvous is compromised."

"Jensen, you're at the rendezvous!" Pooch pointed out, his tone a mix of disbelief and concern.

"Tell me about it. Don't come here, just trust me. I'll meet you at the secondary location," Jensen promised.

"How did the rendezvous get compromised?" Clay asked and waved as he saw and heard Pooch's van coming around the corner.

"Short version? That hack I did on the elevators left my IP address wide open. Probably took about ten seconds for them to trace it," he answered unhappily.

"They traced you?" Aisha asked incredulously. "I thought you were supposed to be the best."

"I am the best. You guys on the other hand, suck. Setting off alarms and touching things that I said not to touch! Getting stuck in elevators I have to make move. You're welcome by the way," the hacker replied, almost sulking.

"I'll thank you when we get out of here alive," Aisha promised.

"No you won't," Jensen muttered to which Aisha shrugged in agreement.

Meanwhile Pooch jumped out of the van, several huge guns hanging off his shoulders as he held up the brick of C4 he had brought with him.

"Where's this going?"

Clay handed him the electronic map and said, "Follow the red dot. Jensen, finish up what you're doing and then get the hell out of there. Cougar, we'll meet you at the secondary rendezvous."

"Understood," Cougar answered.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't blow the floor yet!" Jensen yelled.

"What now?" Aisha asked.

"I'm shutting down the motion sensors so they can't track you once you're down. Just give me a few more seconds," Jensen explained.

"Motion sensors in the sewer lines? Man, this place really loves its security," Pooch commented just as they turned to hear the sound of bullets ricocheting off metal behind them. They all drew their weapons and then relaxed marginally when they realized the sounds were coming from behind the doors Jensen had locked down.

"Sounds like they want to have a chat with us," Clay commented. "Jensen, we gotta blow this floor."

"Okay, you're good. Also, the comms are probably going to go dark once you're down there so if you want to tell me how much you love me, do it now," Jensen joked.

"Just get out of there Jensen. Now. That's an order," Clay reminded him. Pooch held up the detonator for the C4 and indicated they should all cover their ears. The three of them ducked behind a car as Pooch pressed the trigger. The explosion shook the support beams and several car alarms went off but the job was done – there was a gaping hole in the floor of the garage leading to the sewer system below the building.

"Hope you're ready for one nasty ass getaway," Pooch warned as he slung his weapons and dropped down into the hole.

"Ladies first," Clay offered. Aisha didn't even flinch at the smell as she jumped in. Clay was right behind them as was the sound of the door finally being broken down and a lot of heavily armed men bursting into the garage.

"Pooch, blow it behind us," Clay ordered and their demolitions expert wasted no time sticking a second block of C4 against the wall and then running after his teammates.

As the second explosion rocked the foundation of the building, Clay, Aisha and Pooch started their semi-clean getaway while Jensen finished up on his own end.

"Clay? Pooch? Chica?" Jensen called over the comms experimentally just to see if there might be reception, but as predicted the frequencies were quiet. "I guess it's just you and me, Coug. I have a strange feeling that's going to be a pretty one-sided conversation though. You mind if a rant? Of course you don't."

"Are you clear of the rendezvous yet?" Cougar asked as he slunk through alleyways in the street to avoid the many vehicles with sirens flashing that were now heading towards GenuGlobe Industries.

"Coug, so nice of you to join in! Not yet. I gotta save this information we all worked so hard for and then burn Nancy – I'm sorry girl, if there was another way I'd take you with me – and then I'm out of here," Jensen promised still typing even as he pictured his mental clock ticking down.

"Work faster," Cougar urged him, not liking the hacker hanging around in a compromised position.

"I'm going as fast as I can, but I love to know you care. There, everything's saved," he announced as he then hit a couple of keystrokes to activate the self-destruct sequence within the computer. Almost immediately the hard drives started to fritz, short circuit and send smoke out through the vents of the tower. Jensen packed up his bag, checked his weapon in its holster and then laid a fond hand on the computer. "You deserved better Nance. I'll never forget you."

"Jensen," Cougar urged him uncharacteristically, knowing that if the others weren't around he had to keep the hacker on task.

"I'm going, I'm going Coug, geez. For a guy who barely talks you're a nag!" Jensen commented. "I'm heading up to the roof now, okay. Figure there are probably already cop cars on the way here, I'll be better off in a different building."

Jensen bounded up a flight of stairs in the warehouse and then started to climb the metal ladder that would take him to the roof of the building.

As he climbed he, of course, kept talking.

"This must have been a pretty disappointing job for you Cougar. I mean, you never got to shoot anybody!"

Silence.

"Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you take some kind of sick joy out of shooting people or you're some heartless government built killing machine, but you're damn good at it. That's gotta be kind of fun. Taking people out when they don't know you're there. And you can't even pretend you aren't aware how bad ass it is, shooting guys that look about as big as an ant they're so far away. Watching everyone else scramble around looking for you. You wouldn't time things the way you do if you _weren't _trying to be kind of bad ass."

Cougar still wasn't saying anything, which wasn't surprising, but he could hear the faint sounds of the sniper's breathing so continued anyway, assured he indeed had an audience.

"Now me on the other hand, I think this mission was a huge success, despite all the touching of things that shouldn't have been touched. We successfully hacked and stole and got away and I didn't get shot at once. That brings my grand total to two missions in a row I haven't been shot, which is one more than Pooch."

Jensen had reached the top of the ladder and pushed open the skylight to climb out on to the roof. When he felt a surprisingly strong breeze on his face he looked up into the dark night sky and felt his stomach drop.

"Oh shit."

"Jensen?" Cougar asked, the unspoken 'what's wrong' lingering in the air.

There was a Blackhawk Stealth M32 helicopter with dual fifty caliber side guns aimed in Jensen's direction hovering about fifty yards away from him.

"Yeah, um, Cougar. I may have spoke too soon about the not getting shot part."

TBC

I'm halfway through chapter 2 and hope to have it up for you guys soon! Should only be about three chapters altogether, nothing too epic. Hope you're enjoying thus far!


	2. Attempts at Badassery

**Title**: Compromised 2/?  
**Rating**: PG-13 (violence and swearing)  
**Summary**: For once Jensen isn't on the front lines during a mission, but he still finds a way to get into trouble.  
**Disclaimer**: Not mine, which is sad. No profit, even sadder.  
**Author's notes**: So I may have to find some kind of hurt/comfort anonymous addiction support group. I appear to have a problem, you'll see why. The response so far has been amazing guys, hope this wasn't too long a wait for anyone, and that no animals or humans were harmed while waiting for more. You know who you are.

* * *

It was dark on the roof and Jensen thought that was probably going to be the only thing that might save him. The Blackhawk was hovering nearby but its lights weren't directly on him yet and the skylight was only about five feet away. He could probably make it back inside.

Then again, if a single bullet from that cannon of a gun hit him, it'd be over, or at least he'd wish it was.

"Fuck it," he muttered. Always one to trust his impulses he ran and dove for the open skylight.

"Freeze!" he heard a voice bellow over a megaphone as concrete and dust kicked up behind him from several dozen bullet impacts.

"Shit!" he yelled, feeling the whiz of the bullets as he jumped down the skylight. Jensen really would have liked to do something bad ass at that moment like twist his body mid-fall and land perfectly on the ground in a crouch, guns drawn. But today was not that kind of day, and besides, there was no one around to see even if he did, so instead he ended up landing gracelessly on his back on the concrete twelve feet below the skylight moaning in pain.

_Great idea Jensen_, he thought to himself sarcastically. _Kill yourself trying to get away before they can shoot you. Brilliant!_

The impact dazed him for more than a moment and stole the air from his lungs. Over the comms Cougar was actually shouting, something he hadn't heard him do since before Bolivia.

"Jensen! What's happening?"

"Can't talk," Jensen squeaked out with the little bit of air in his lungs. "Running for life."

Of course by 'running' he actually meant slowly rolling over and hobbling away from any windows the Blackhawk could fire at him through. He unholstered his gun and started to stagger down the steps, hoping the back door might not be covered yet and he could make it to a getaway car.

"I'm coming," Cougar promised firmly with no room for arguments, and Jensen could faintly hear the sound of the sniper running.

"No Coug, there's a Blackhawk hovering around the place, and it's armed to the teeth, like nasty shark teeth," Jensen told him, trying to keep his teammate out of danger. "I'm going to try to sneak out the back, I'll be fine, don't worry about it."

Even at that moment Jensen was jogging towards the back of the warehouse and had almost reached the door when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye; a soldier in black stealth gear had just run past a side window.

"Crap on a cracker," he muttered.

They were covering the back. His last chance was a vent in the basement that he wasn't all that sure about as an escape route, but with absolutely no back up nearby he knew he didn't have much of a choice.

Just as he turned around to go back though the door was kicked open and armed men flooded into the room.

"Freeze!" a voice yelled but opened fire before Jensen even had a chance to consider surrender.

_Don't think this guy understands the point of 'freezing'_, Jensen decided as he returned fire and ran for cover. He had almost made it safely behind the metal staircase when he felt a burning explode high up on his right side. The impact toppled him forward to safety but he landed sprawled and hissing in pain.

A mile away Cougar tried to focus on reaching the warehouse and forming a plan of attack, but he heard everything that was happening to the hacker and suddenly had a feeling of helplessness he hadn't felt since he watched a missile fly towards a helicopter in Bolivia.

"Jensen, can you hear me?" Cougar asked, needing to know if that bullet fire had been fatal.

"Ah, god! Ten four good buddy, I'm still here," Jensen replied through gritted teeth as he inspected the wound. The bullet had grazed him high in the chest, which meant it at least hadn't hit any vital organs, but it felt like it took half a rib with it. As he applied pressure to the wound he could see more men running past the windows at the other end of the warehouse, undoubtedly about to burst in and back up their buddies who were currently shooting at him. He sighed. "Not sure how much longer though, man. I got a whole lot of pissed off dudes with guns coming in and I'm not really seeing much of an escape route here."

"Stay alive," Cougar instructed, still racing through the city streets to get to him. "Keep quiet and stay alive."

Jensen returned fire half-heartedly through an opening in the stairwell grating just to give himself more time.

"Yeah, I'll see what I can do, although keeping quiet's always been your department," Jensen joked tensely then reached up to his ear hesitantly. He had absolutely nothing on him that could lead these guys to the rest of the team except his earpiece. If they took it off him they could trace the signal back to the others and though he was loathe to sever his only link to the team, he wasn't willing to put them at risk like that. "I'm gonna have to log off then Coug. Can't let them get my earpiece. If … if you can't get here … well … it's been fun Cougar. No regrets. Tell the others."

Before Cougar had a chance to respond Jensen pulled the earpiece out and chucked it into a corner.

"We'll be there," Cougar assured him, not realizing Jensen could no longer hear him. "Jensen? Jensen?"

Back at the warehouse Jensen sucked in a deep breath and shouted, "Hey! Bad guys! I don't have anything white on me to wave around so could we maybe just, I don't know, stop shooting at each other?"

To his relief bullets stopped ricocheting around the room and a loud voice bellowed from behind him.

"Throw out any weapons you have and walk out slowly with your hands up or we open fire again."

"Sounds good Big Guy," Jensen answered as he threw both his sidearms out into the open. "Very reasonable. Okay, coming out now."

Moving was not pleasant with his fresh bullet wound and holding his arms above his head was pretty much the most painful thing he could do, but since his other choice was to get shot again, he sucked it up and walked out. As soon as he was in the open he found himself swarmed by men eager to roughly cuff his hands behind his back, search every stitch of his clothing and then kick his knees out from behind to make him kneel.

"Ow. Okay, totally unnecessary guys. I thought we were going to work together on this. I surrender, you be nice to me, no harm, no foul. Hey, nice Glock … aaaaaaaand it's pointed at my head." Jensen shut his mouth and looked at the floor as the barrel of the gun was pressed against his temple. He looked up at the man holding the weapon and smiled in what he hoped was a charming manner and enquired, "Shut up?"

"You got it," the soldier agreed and then proved to be the man in charge as he started shouting orders. "Alright, search the rest of this place. If there's anyone else here I want them found and find out where this guy was working from."

"There's no one else here," Jensen piped in helpfully.

The man, who was huge and had a name tag labeling him as Havers, gritted his teeth and moved his gun to Jensen's forehead, "What did I say about talking?"

"Actually you didn't say anything. I suggested I shut up, to which you agreed. But, semantics, who cares? In the spirit of cooperation I just wanted to save you some time and let you know, there's no one else here. Also, my computer is down that hall to the left," Jensen added, knowing that Nancy was completely useless now that he had destroyed her hard drives.

Havers glared suspiciously but motioned for two of his men to check out the section of the warehouse Jensen had indicated.

"All right," Havers began with a tight smile. "In the spirit of cooperation then, why don't you tell me where the rest of your team is that broke into GenuGlobe?"

Jensen actually laughed directly into the gun pointed at his face, "Oh no, I can't tell you that. That's top secret."

The situation got a lot more serious when Havers pulled his arm back and pistol whipped the hacker hard across the cheekbone with the butt of his gun. With his hands cuffed behind him Jensen was unable to brace himself, but managed to twist enough to land on his shoulder instead of his face as he fell. His glasses slid across the floor, broken, as he grimaced and blinked through the pain exploding in his face and ribs.

"Damn. So, you must be kind of new to the whole 'beating information out of someone' thing, huh?" Jensen said snarkily as he pushed himself back up to his knees, trying to focus on his words instead of his pain. He worked his jaw open a few times and continued. "See normally you want to avoid breaking the jaw of the guy you want to start talking. Makes it a little difficult for him to spill his guts."

Havers growled in annoyance and wasted no time harshly kicking the hacker in the stomach. Jensen grunted in pain and curled in on himself protectively as his forehead dropped down against the concrete. It took longer than the first hit, but the moment he had an ounce of air in his lungs he squeaked out, "Now you're getting it."

Before Havers could try anything else one of his men returned from down the hall.

"Sir, we found the computer, it's completely destroyed, looks like the hard drives were set to burn themselves out. It's useless," the man reported.

"Oops," Jensen said innocently as he lifted his head to smile cheekily.

"That's bad news for you …" Havers began only to have Jensen interrupt him.

"I know, tell me about it. I loved that computer!"

Havers took a hold of Jensen's hair and pulled the hacker's head back, subsequently shutting him up and making him gasp with pain from the stretched bullet wound. Clearly fed up, Havers lowered his face down to Jensen's level and practically spat as he explained:

"We got tech guys of our own, and they tell me that several gigabytes of information was remotely transferred from the servers. You obviously didn't store it on your computer, and I know you don't have a drive on you, so that means you can tell me where the information is, or I can start looking for it, and if I don't find it pretty quickly I'm going to assume it's inside you, in which case I'll rip it out with my bare hands. Got it?"

Jensen nodded as well as he could in Havers's death grip and cleared his throat, "Loud and clear. Graphically clear, even. Almost obscene."

This time Havers went with a straight punch to the nose that knocked Jensen onto his back where he lay stunned for a moment. He desperately tried to focus and breathe but it was getting harder and harder to keep up his carefree attitude and trick his body into thinking it wasn't in agony.

His eyes were watering against his will from the punch, blurring his vision, so he listened as Havers shouted out orders above him.

"All right, this guy doesn't have a radio and obviously didn't have a way out of here. That means there's a chance this was supposed to be a rendezvous spot and the rest of his team is on the way here. Put perimeter patrols on stealth and tell the chopper to start doing rounds and not linger around the building. If they are heading this way I don't want to scare them off. Go!"

From his vantage point at ground level Jensen saw several sets of booted feet leave the room but when he turned his head he saw Havers still had at least two burly, armed men backing him up, which meant the chances of him somehow escaping now that there were fewer men around were not as good as he briefly hoped.

Grinning maniacally, Havers walked over to stand next to the dazed hacker.

"Hey Sparky," Jensen greeted him. When Jensen tried to roll over to sit up the security guard from hell put a heavy boot on his chest to push him back down.

"Ah god!" Jensen yelled involuntarily as Havers intentionally put pressure on the bullet wound in his ribs.

"So this is how this is going to work," Havers began, grinding his heel down more forcefully every time Jensen struggled until the hacker could barely breathe at all. "From now on you talk only when I ask a question, and when you answer that question you will answer in three words or less. For every word you go over three, I will break one bone in your body. Understood?"

Havers accentuated his point by pressing down so hard on Jensen's chest he felt a rib crack.

"Understood?" He repeated.

"Got it," Jensen gasped out, anything to make the pressure stop. When Havers lifted his foot the hacker rolled over gasping and then, because he still had one word left on his limit, added. "Motherfucker."

"How creative. All right, let's get started. One of you, pull him up," Havers ordered the men behind him. Jensen's blurred eyes could barely make out the name Purdy on the guard's name tag that grabbed his arm and he laughed in his head – that guy must have gotten made fun of so bad in school! He was tempted to comment but it really wasn't worth the potential broken bones.

It wasn't like he believed that broken bones weren't in his future however as he watched Havers light up a cigarette and smirk when Jensen grimaced noticeably from being jostled around.

"So, one more time, where did you store the information?"

"Go. To. Hell," Jensen answered, carefully articulating each of his three allowed words.

His response was followed by a kick to the groin so hard that Jensen felt his vision black out for a second, but oddly true to his word, Havers made no move to break any bones.

Havers paused long enough to take a drag off his cigarette and let Jensen suck in a breath or two before he continued.

"I can do this all night, and I will. Where's the information from GenuGlobe?"

"Up your ass," Jensen grit out and tensed for his punishment.

Havers's jaw twitched before he took a last long drag on his cigarette, pulled Jensen's head back by the hair and pressed the fiery end into the sensitive flesh of his neck.

"Ah!" Jensen yelled in agony and tried to pull away but Havers's grip was strong and he held the hacker there until the embers were completely out and the smell of smoke was completely replaced by the smell of burnt flesh.

Havers flicked away the cigarette and Jensen slumped in the grasp of the man holding him. His body was shaking from adrenaline and pain overload and he nearly gagged on the smell of his own scorched flesh. Each gasping breath he took only served to cause him more pain as his destroyed ribs protested each inhalation. He only hoped unconsciousness or the team would get there soon, but at this point he wasn't sure which one he would prefer more.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered, clenching his eyes shut and idly wondering if those counted towards his next three words.

"We can be finished here. It's all up to you, boy. Just tell me where you hid that information and we'll drop you off with the police and we all go our separate ways," Havers promised sweetly.

_Drop me off in the river is more like it_, Jensen thought to himself as he struggled for breath, hating that each bob of his Adam's apple sent new lines of agony streaking out from the fresh burn on his neck. His mind struggled for a clever three word response, but when he came up blank he decided to go with a classic that he knew would make Pooch proud.

"Fuck you motherfu…!"

Jensen was cut off by Haver's fist yet again striking him hard across the face. He slumped again, barely being held up anymore as he felt his vision start to black out from so many blows to the head. He felt his lip split and spit out blood as Havers shook his fist out.

_Again with the face hitting_, Jensen mentally berated his torturer.

"I don't know, you just don't seem to be getting the point of the exercise, kid," Havers commented, shaking his head with mock disappointment.

Jensen lifted his head to respond and then blinked, not sure what he was seeing at first, but then he chuckled and his body sagged with relief instead of pain as he offered Havers a wide, bloody grin.

"And you don't seem to know who you're dealing with," Jensen answered, then tilted his head. "Or what that red dot on your jacket means."

Havers had enough time to look surprised before all hell broke loose in the warehouse for the second time that night.

TBC

Not quite as close to being over as you may think at first glance. Just saying. Thanks for reading! Robin.


	3. You Don't Know Anything About Him

**Title**: Compromised 3/?  
**Rating**: PG-13 (violence and swearing)  
**Summary**: For once Jensen isn't on the front lines during a mission, but he still finds a way to get into trouble.  
**Disclaimer**: Not mine, which is sad. No profit, even sadder.  
**Author's notes**: Hope you don't mind a little backtracking and a little Cougar perspective. Things move along in the second half. Sorry for the delay. Talk to my RL – it got crazy last weekend when I intended to do some writing.

* * *

Cougar was used to working alone. Sure, he was a part of the team, but the majority of the time he was off on his own, providing cover somewhere in the distance or doing recon on their next target. But all those times he still felt like he was there with the others, covering them, watching them, listening to the plan unfold and mapping escape routes should things go wrong. But now, as he raced through the city, rifle slung across his back, legs pounding to get back to the rendezvous, he had never felt further away from anything in his life.

Clay, Pooch and Aisha's comms were still dark, meaning he had no back up until they climbed out of the sewer under GenuGlobe and he had no idea when that would be.

Jensen's comm was not in his ear.

"_You must be kind of new to this whole beating information out of someone thing, huh?"_

It was, however, still transmitting from inside the warehouse, forcing the sniper to suffer along with his friend as he was beaten for information.

Smack!

Each sound cut into Cougar's mind sharply, tightening his stomach into knots and making his legs pump that much faster.

Jensen had thrown the earpiece into a corner of the warehouse but it hadn't smashed as he assumed it would. Instead, Cougar heard everything that was happening to the hacker and was forced to imagine just what actions went along with the sounds.

And Cougar had a very dark imagination.

The last thing he had told Jensen before he was cut off was to stay quiet and stay alive.

"_I know, tell me about_ _it_," Jensen was saying in his ear, gasping in pain. "_I loved that computer_!"

Cougar cringed as Jensen continued to only follow half of his instructions and his smart-mouthed comment was again followed by the sound of flesh hitting flesh and then the hard smack of a body hitting concrete.

Every time Jensen was hit Cougar had to fight the urge to stop running as his instinct was to stop and listen to make sure the hacker was still alive and breathing. But he forced himself to keep moving, not willing to waste precious seconds that Jensen might not have.

"_Put perimeter patrols on stealth and tell the chopper to start doing rounds and not linger around the building. If they are heading this way I don't want to scare them off. Go!"_

Cougar knew that was the voice of the man interrogating Jensen and most likely the one dishing out the hacker's punishment as well. Cougar couldn't put a face to this voice yet, but he pictured him dying slowly of several well placed bullet wounds courtesy of his rifle.

This one instance of eavesdropping did provide him with useful information though as he now knew the Blackhawk would not be as much of a problem as he had feared and that there would be men hiding in the shadows of the building.

He would fit right in.

Just as he flinched again from hearing Jensen's sarcastic "_Hey Sparky_" followed by the hacker grunting in pain, he sighed in relief as another voice finally appeared over the comm line.

"…gar? Jensen? These things working yet?" he heard Clay ask, sounding slightly winded but not panicked.

"Boss, we got a problem," Cougar reported immediately as he jumped a fence into the industrial section of town.

"What kind of problem?" Clay asked.

Cougar didn't want to waste his breath on explanations so answered simply, "Just listen."

"What's that mean just lis …" Pooch's question was cut off by a 'shh' from Aisha as the team concentrated on the background noise over the comm line. They somehow grew even more silent as they heard a foreign voice start speaking in dangerous tones.

"_From now on you talk only when I ask a question, and when you answer that question you will answer in three words or less. For every word you go over three, I will break one bone in your body. Understood?"_

They all flinched as this was followed by the sound of bones grinding together and then Jensen's pained gasp of, "_Got it_."

"Dammit," Clay muttered, not needing to articulate what they all knew had happened. "I told him to get out of there."

"Jensen, hang on, we're on our way!" Pooch yelled in an attempt to assure their teammate. That idea was destroyed though when Cougar explained:

"He took his earpiece out. He didn't want them to track it."

Clay sighed, clearly hating the situation, "Cougar, tell me you got eyes on him and that they haven't moved him."

"Not yet. Close," Cougar reported, slowing his approach as he was only a few buildings away now. "He is still at the warehouse."

His protective instincts told him to run into the building full tilt, guns drawn, death following closely behind, but his training told him to go slow, observe his surroundings and proceed with stealth and caution.

"_Motherfucker_," he heard Jensen hiss in pain, alone and bleeding and no more than two hundred meters away.

He walked slowly around the corner of the next building and hated his training for keeping him so far away.

"How the hell did Par Sec get there so fast?" Pooch asked. Cougar could hear they were all running now as well wherever they were.

"They came in a Blackhawk," Cougar reported. "It's gone for now. They want to draw the rest of us in."

"Well, they're gonna get their wish. We're on our way," Clay promised. "Get me eyes Cougar. Can you tell if Jensen's still mobile?"

"_Where did you store the information_?" the foreign voice interrupted loudly, halting all possible conversation.

"_Go. To. Hell_." Jensen answered slowly, followed by a sharp gasp of pain, a thud and a long moan.

"He took a hit. Said it wasn't fatal," Cougar answered Clay's question, forcing himself to block out the sounds. "And he's still talking."

"That doesn't tell us anything," Aisha pointed out. "Jensen could be dead and he'd still talk."

The three of them had just jumped into a car they were going to hotwire, but Clay and Pooch stopped to glare at her for the remark.

"Not that that's going to happen," she added, backtracking over her words.

Back near the warehouse Cougar was circling the perimeter and had come across the first two guards.

"Patrol," he reported to the others as he crept into the shadows to wait for the guards to pass him.

The team went silent in an attempt to make sure Cougar wasn't distracted, this unfortunately meant, however, that there was no chatter to drown out the sounds coming from the factory.

"_I can do this all night, and I will. Where's the information from GenuGlobe?"_ the walking dead man demanded of the hacker yet again.

"_Up your ass_," Cougar heard Jensen answer tightly just as two guards walked by Cougar's position in the shadows outside. He tried to focus on the task at hand; since there were two of them the smartest move would have been to let the guards walk right by rather than risk one of them raising an alarm before he could take them both out.

"_Ah_!" Jensen's scream came from nowhere, piercing and agonized, his pain reverberating through Cougar's skull like a twisted melody.

Growling with rage, Cougar leapt from the shadows and in one and a half seconds slit the throat of one guard while shooting the other in the head with a silenced handgun. When both men were dead, Jensen was still screaming and Cougar was on the move.

"Jesus Christ, I can't listen to this," Pooch mumbled from across town as he drove them all roughly through the streets in the car they had hotwired.

"Yes, we can," Clay told him firmly. "We have to know everything we can going in there."

Jensen was gasping now, still in pain but too exhausted to scream anymore.

"_We can be finished here. It's all up to you, boy," _his captor taunted him._ " Just tell me where you hid that information and we'll drop you off with the police and we all go our separate ways."_

"Hell with this," Pooch mumbled, pulling his earpiece out furiously and glaring at Clay as he did so. "You got no problem listening to this, you can give me the play by play. I don't need the nightmares."

Clay had a lot of problems with it, but it wasn't the time to argue the point.

"We got a plan?" Aisha asked, leaning forward from the back seat.

"We'll improvise when we get there," Clay decided. "They don't know we got ears in the place, that gives us an advantage."

"They have a hostage. We need a better advantage," Aisha argued.

"I didn't say we only had the one," Clay said cockily as he touched his earpiece. "Cougar, you got eyes yet?"

The sniper was climbing a building across from the warehouse that would put him slightly higher than the bay windows in the target building.

"Almost."

"_Fuck you motherfu…!" _Jensen's profane interruption was cut off before it could finish and they all cringed at the sounds of fists hitting flesh.

"Dammit," Clay muttered, proving that he could not listen stone-faced as a member of his team was tortured. "Cougar, I need a sit rep as soon as you got eyes. And do not do anything until we get there. Got it?"

Cougar was on top of the building now and squinting through his scope into the warehouse below, his jaw clenched tightly.

He had found Jensen.

The hacker was being held up by two burly guards while a third man paced in front of him. Jensen's back was to Cougar so he couldn't see his teammate's face, but he could see the man who had been torturing their youngest member for the last hour. As he put the target in his sight the magnification of his scope could pick up the man's nametag: Havers.

He had never looked so forward to pulling a trigger.

The big man was shaking out his fist after hitting Jensen hard across the jaw and he clearly wasn't planning on stopping anytime soon.

Like hell Cougar was waiting.

The only problem was, it was dark. Cougar couldn't see any plants or dust moving in the air to get a read on the wind variations and the lighting in the warehouse was minimal at best. In a building full of targets it wouldn't matter very much, but considering Jensen was standing _very_ close to the men he was going to be firing at, precision was important.

It gave away his position, but he switched on the laser scope on his rifle, just to be sure, and smiled when he saw the red dot was directly on its mark on Havers' chest.

He could hear Jensen smiling as he noticed too.

"_And you don't seem to know who you're dealing with_," Jensen said, then Cougar saw him tilt his head towards Havers. "_Or what that red dot on your jacket means_."

That was Cougar's cue. He fired and felt his lip twitch upwards in satisfaction as Havers fell to the ground.

One down, two to go.

Back in the warehouse, Jensen was moving faster than his captors as he knew exactly what was happening while they were trying to figure it out. He was in no shape to fight his way free so instead he went limp, hoping the men would drop him to the ground and then Cougar could get the clear shots he needed.

The man on his right did just that and let him go as he pulled his gun out and spun around to face the window behind them, trying to spot a target.

"Sniper! Move! Let's get …"

A red dot appeared on his forehead. A muffled pop. He was dead before he finished his sentence.

"Jesus Christ!" the last guard (Purdy, Jensen remembered) screamed as he watched his team member fall to the ground with half his skull missing.

"Nice shot Cougar!" Jensen exclaimed happily, knowing he was almost free.

That was until Purdy hauled him up to standing by the collar of his shirt and held him up as a human shield.

"Oh shit. You have no idea … how bad a plan this is buddy," Jensen gasped out in warning as the bigger man tried to hide his whole body behind the hacker.

"You shut the hell up!" Purdy demanded, drawing his gun and shoving it into Jensen's back. "Now, call him off or I shoot you right now!"

"Well make up your mind! Do you want me to shut up or call him off? That's very confusing and highly contradictory … Ah!"

The guard moved the gun up to press hard into the hacker's ribs where the bullet had grazed him earlier in the night making his side explode in agony.

"Son of a bitch!" Jensen yelled to expel the pain. Jensen really wished he could fight back but his hands were bound and his body was just about to give out on him. He could sense unconsciousness creeping into the edges of his vision, not to mention the guy was squeezing his shirt collar so tightly he could barely breathe. No, it was up to Cougar to get him out of this one, but that thought didn't worry him in the least and he even smiled out the window he was facing, knowing Cougar could see him. "No, he's not going anywhere, especially after that stunt. I'd say you're Royally Screwed pal. With a capital R and S … and a lowercase p, just for good grammar."

"All right fine, you're not gonna call him off, then we're getting out of here," Purdy decided, shaking the hacker to emphasize his point and pulling him towards the right where a stack of metal crates would provide cover from the sniper fire.

They got about half a step before a bullet broke through the window and pounded into the ground an inch from Purdy's foot.

"God damn it!" the guard yelled, flinching back instinctually and crouching even lower behind Jensen to protect himself.

"Call me crazy, but I don't think … he likes that plan," Jensen mumbled, still gasping. If his body wasn't so close to collapsing in agony he might have even been amused. He considered going limp in an attempt to give Cougar a better shot at the guy but the guard's deathgrip on his collar made it obvious that he wasn't going to let him fall and let that happen.

"Too damn bad," Purdy said with more bravado than he felt, clearly intending to try again. "He's not going to shoot you to get to me."

"You don't know anything about him," Jensen pointed out darkly, stopping the bigger man cold. "Hell, I hardly know anything about him. I do know … if you don't let me go soon though he's going to kill you … and if you make him wait any longer he's going to do it slowly. I do know that. Right Cougar?"

A bullet smashing into the ground next to Purdy's feet was his answer.

"That's a yes," Jensen pointed out in case it wasn't clear.

Behind him Purdy had started shaking nervously, terrified at his lack of options.

"All right, just shut up! Both of you!" he demanded, looking around the room wildly for any escape or rescue.

For his part Jensen was getting pretty tired of playing hostage and decided he wanted this over. He looked straight out the window, knowing Cougar was watching every move, waiting for the smallest opening. He looked forward and then made a point of looking down towards the ground. Then he did it again just to make sure the sniper caught it and had lowered his own gaze. Then, taking a deep breath, and hoping he didn't get himself shot, Jensen twisted quickly and swung his right leg up over his left.

Jensen couldn't move his upper body out of Purdy's deathgrip, but now the guard's legs were briefly exposed.

And almost immediately riddled with bullets.

It happened fast, as it almost always did when guns were involved. Jensen moved and then Purdy seemed to be yelling in pain even before he registered the sound of the gunshots. The guard fell back, taking Jensen with him as he yelled out in agony and tried to grasp his bleeding leg. Jensen was winded from the fall but knew he had to move, quickly.

Even in pain, Purdy was a trained soldier, and he was reaching for his gun with his free hand.

Jensen rolled off the injured man but didn't bother trying to make it much farther.

The moment he was clear he heard another muffled gunshot reverberate around the warehouse and he knew Purdy wouldn't be bothering him again. Cougar didn't miss after all.

Alone, bleeding, tied up and surrounded by dead bodies, Jensen fell to his side and laughed to keep from crying.

"Jesus Cougar … you don't mess around," he muttered, squinting to see the room around him and the carnage the sniper had unleashed. Almost a minute passed and he was still alone with the bodies. He sure hoped the team got there quickly – this was getting awkward.

TBC

Little bit more to go. A little hurt, a good chunk of comfort. You know you love it! Thanks for reading. Robin.


	4. Wake me for Angelina

**Title:** Compromised 4/4  
**Rating**: PG-13 (violence and swearing)  
**Summary**: For once Jensen isn't on the front lines during a mission, but he still finds a way to get into trouble.  
**Disclaimer**: Not mine, which is sad. No profit, even sadder.  
**Author's notes**: Sorry for the delay. This has actually been mostly done for almost a week but I kept forgetting to email myself the version I was working on at my job, where firewalls block my posting sites. Anyway, here it is and it is COMPLETE! It's been fun. Hope you all enjoyed!

* * *

It took Cougar two minutes to climb down off the building he was on, sprint silently across the dark parking lot and kick in the nearest door of the warehouse. Those two minutes felt like eternity as he was forced to leave Jensen alone in the warehouse, tied up and bleeding, without cover. This was why Clay had told him to wait - he simply couldn't be in enough places at once to attempt a rescue on his own, but it was a chance he had to take. Once he had gotten into position there was no way he was going to watch their youngest team member be beaten in front of him. Not while there were bullets in his gun and breath in his body.

Now he was stalking across the large open warehouse, checking corners for ambushes and trying not to let his sight tunnel vision on the blond haired body on the floor across the room.

Jensen was lying on his side, blinking slowly. It looked like he was trying to breathe deeply but his body tensed and shuddered every time his lungs reached half capacity. As Cougar moved closer he could see the hacker's face was bruised and bloody – his lip was split and his left cheek was swelling badly, but his main concern was the blood seeping through Jensen's t-shirt.

"I really hope that's you Cougar … and not some Par Sec guy with the same hat," Jensen muttered softly as he squinted across the room, blind without his glasses. "Cause that's _your_ look … and I hate imitators."

Satisfied the warehouse was clear for the moment Cougar knelt beside the hacker but kept his gun up and ready.

"Jensen," he said, not sure if it was a greeting or an exclamation of relief.

"My hero," Jensen replied with a pained grin, still chatty despite his various injuries. "Nice shooting."

Cougar was about to reply but flinched instead and touched his ear.

"I've got him. Warehouse is clear," he said into his comm. "There are still some patrols outside … He's … conscious."

"Where's Clay?" Jensen asked, scouring the room again, knowing that was who the sniper had been talking to.

"They're on their way. Hold still," Cougar answered as he tore the hacker's shirt to get a better look at the wound underneath.

"Ah god!" Jensen yelled in surprise as the movement ignited the pain again. "You get straight to business huh? You could … at least buy me … dinner first."

Cougar didn't respond, instead opting to silently examine the wound. It looked like the bullet had hit mostly rib, which must have hurt like hell, but at least meant there was probably no internal bleeding.

Cougar didn't have a medkit on him but kept emergency bandages in the pockets of his cargo pants. He tore one open and applied it to the wound, wincing along with Jensen as the pressure sent spikes of pain through the techie, making him arch off the floor.

"Sonofa…! Okay, breathe. Breathing … so … you came in without the others?" Jensen asked, needing the distraction of conversation, even if it was one-sided. "Clay's gonna tear you a new one … when he gets here."

Cougar didn't even bother to shrug, he cared that little for what Clay would do. Instead he ran his hands down the hacker's ribs, exerting just enough pressure to see if any bones cracked or gave out and tried to ignore the tense, breathless pain Jensen was obviously in as he did so.

"What's the verdict, Dr. Cougar?" Jensen asked tightly as he focused on the ceiling.

"Don't breathe too deeply. None are broken but a few could go any time. You'll live," he announced when he was done, to which Jensen let out a breath and rolled his head back.

"Great, just when I feel like I'd rather not."

Now assured Jensen's injuries weren't life-threatening, Cougar rolled the hacker over just enough to see that his wrists were handcuffed, not bound with rope.

"Keys?" he asked Jensen.

"No idea man," Jensen answered, shaking his head and sounding truly exhausted for the first time since Cougar came in.

Cougar looked at the bodies around him then touched Jensen's cheek lightly to make sure the hacker was looking at him.

"I'll be right back," he promised firmly. Jensen just huffed out the ghost of a laugh.

"Yeah Coug, I know. Thanks."

Nodding, Cougar sprinted across the room and snagged a set of keys off the dead guard a few feet away. Coming back over he put an arm behind the hacker's shoulders and helped him sit up, hating when Jensen hissed in pain.

"Sorry," Cougar said reflexively as he carefully supported Jensen with one arm and unlocked the cuffs with the other.

"No worries man … I'd be way worse off if you weren't here," Jensen replied, then hissed again in a mix of pain and relief as the cuffs came loose and his arms were able to fall forward. "Oh god … arm movement is such sweet sorrow. Thanks."

Jensen was about to suggest they get out of there but was cut off by a loud groan from across the room.

"What the hell? Was that me? I feel like shit but I don't think that was me," Jensen rambled while Cougar just shook his head and gave him a look that said 'stay here' as he stood up and walked away, leaving the hacker sitting, clutching his ribs and wishing he could find his glasses. Moments later a body dropped almost directly in front of him; from the color of the clothes and the man's build he knew it was Havers. Cougar must have thrown him across the room.

"If this is a present … I don't want it," Jensen told him, but then his eyes widened when Havers groaned again, clearly regaining consciousness. Jensen was only surprised because he assumed the man was dead. "Man Cougar, I don't think I ever … saw you miss before."

"I didn't," Cougar said firmly as he drew a handgun. The message was clear: some things you do face to face.

"Got it," Jensen said, his tone muted by Cougar's dark implications. They were both saved from talking when Havers finally regained consciousness.

"Son of a bitch," the man muttered as he started to roll over then stopped and gasped when the pain from his bullet wound hit him. Jensen thought it looked like Havers had been shot in the collarbone, which would hurt like nothing else if the bone shattered underneath, but he still saw the man lift his head off the ground to see who was with him.

Jensen waved smugly, "Hey Sparky. This is my friend Cougar … I have a feeling you're probably not going to get along."

"You cocky little son of a bitch, you think I'm scared of some …"

Cougar shot him in the calf with his silenced handgun.

Havers screamed for a moment in which Jensen was surprisingly quiet. When Havers ran out of air Cougar asked his question.

"How many men are around the building?"

"Go to hell!" Havers yelled in response.

Cougar shot him in his other leg.

"See, that's how you interrogate someone!" Jensen blurted out suddenly, as though coming to a great revelation. "Notice how we're not punching you in the jaw … and then asking you to talk!"

"Cocky little bastard," Havers growled, still rolling on the ground in pain. "When I get my hands on you …"

Cougar shot him in the hand.

"Not going to happen," the sniper whispered darkly. "One more chance; how many men?"

"Go ask them yourself!" Havers yelled, to which Cougar arched an eyebrow.

"Good idea."

A final bullet left Cougar's gun and Havers was put out of his misery.

Jensen shuddered at seeing Cougar's cold indifference; the sniper hadn't hesitated to pull the trigger as Havers squirmed helplessly on the floor, and suddenly the hacker was glad he couldn't see clearly because he wasn't sure he wanted to have this cold, emotionless Cougar imprinted in his memory.

At the moment Cougar was pulling something off Havers' belt and Jensen squinted to see what it was. He got his answer when Cougar came back over and held out a radio for him to take.

"Can you do some acting?" Cougar asked seriously, not so much asking if he would, but if he was able to.

Jensen nodded and took the radio, "Yeah, I think so. Give me a sec."

He cleared his throat and took a deep breath, willing himself to sound angry, loud and not in agony.

"This is Havers. All units check in! You spot anyone yet?" Jensen demanded over the radio, lowering his voice and changing his speech pattern to match the dead man across the room. As the radio crackled to life in response he held it out for them both to hear.

"East side's quiet," a voice called in quickly.

"Same with the west."

"Nothing from the roof. Thought I saw some kind of light earlier though across the lot. I sent Marshall to check it out."

"This is Marshall, there's nothing here. I checked the whole building. Might have been a reflection from a car headlight."

Voices continued to check in for another thirty seconds or so, at the end of which Jensen brought the radio back up.

"All right. Maintain positions. Report everything. Over," he said gruffly, then dropped the radio as the voice he was putting on made him start to cough. This immediately bent him over in pain and his body trembled from the waves of agony each spasm caused.

Cougar put a hand on his shoulder to keep him upright and waited tensely for the coughing fit to pass. It took a few moments but eventually Jensen nodded that Cougar could let him go.

"Oh man, that sucked worse than Hanson," Jensen remarked when he was able to slowly push himself into a more upright position. "You remember Hanson? Looked like girls, man … I counted eight guys."

"I took out a pair on the way in," Cougar replied.

"Okay, so we have to assume every guy … who checked in had a partner with him, so about sixteen," Jensen figured.

Cougar nodded in agreement then touched his ear, obviously listening to Clay who had overheard everything.

"Understood," the sniper replied to whatever he was told then looked at Jensen. "We're too exposed here."

Jensen had to agree, they were in the middle of the open area of the warehouse, with no cover, surrounded by bodies.

"That means I gotta move, huh?" Jensen asked with a groan. Before he could begin to start the process of standing though Cougar was at his side, taking his arm that was opposite the bullet wound and pulling him to his feet as gently as possible.

"Thanks … ah!" Jensen was cut off by his own movements as each footstep sent spikes of pain radiating from his ribs and head. Cougar wordlessly took more of his weight and practically carried the hacker to a more concealed area behind a stack of metal shipping crates. As he lowered Jensen to the ground to lean against the crates he saw the younger man was blinking heavily and looked close to passing out. For now that was too risky so Cougar shook Jensen's leg, one of the only places on him that seemed uninjured, and made sure the hacker looked up at him.

"Stay awake," he instructed.

"Go away Mom," Jensen said with a half smile. "Just wake me when the others get here with the car. Or if Angelina Jolie shows up. That'd be awesome … don't let me sleep through that."

"Hey!" Cougar admonished him again when he saw the tech's eyes closing. Jensen snapped his head up then groaned and flinched. Cougar leaned forward to see the cause, turning Jensen's head slightly to get a better look.

The sniper growled when he saw the angry, circular burn near Jensen's Adam's apple and the hacker knew then that if there was anyone left alive in the warehouse, Cougar would have killed them.

"I'm all right Coug," he tried to assure his teammate, but the exhaustion and pain in his voice said the exact opposite.

Cougar remained silent as he brought a hand up and gently probed the left side of Jensen's face to see if his jaw or cheek bone was broken from the punishment he had taken. Jensen flinched but didn't pull away, allowing the examination.

"No," Cougar decided as he dropped his hand, satisfied. "But you will be."

"I'll hold you to that," Jensen muttered, eyes slipping closed once more. He knew they weren't out of danger yet, but with Cougar there he felt safe, and that feeling was enough for his body to decide to start shutting down into repair mode.

Cougar watched as Jensen shifted and flinched, clearly uncomfortable supporting his own weight in the upright position. Sighing, Cougar shuffled backwards, still crouched on one knee, watchful, but now with his back also against the shipping crate allowing Jensen to lean against his shoulder.

"Thanks man," the hacker breathed out in relieved exhaustion.

"Don't sleep," Cougar warned again, but it was admittedly half-hearted.

"Sure … just …"

Ten minutes later Clay, Pooch and Aisha crept silently into the warehouse to find the sniper crouched protectively next to Jensen who was bloody and unconscious.

"How's he doing?" Clay asked, crouching down to examine the hacker himself.

"Lost some blood. Not in shock. His ribs are bad. We need to move him," Cougar answered, his eyes still sweeping all corners of the warehouse for danger as they had been doing since Jensen passed out.

"Damn. We can't leave this kid alone for ten minutes," Pooch muttered as he looked over Jensen's injuries, unable to believe the hacker had gotten himself captured on a mission he hadn't even been on the front lines for.

"We're gonna have to be fast and quiet," Aisha pointed out. "We only took out four guys coming in here. There could be up to a dozen more outside, AND a Blackhawk with a cannon on it hovering around somewhere."

"Let's move then," Pooch suggested, kneeling down next to the hacker. "Cougs, take his other arm."

"No, we can't move him yet," Clay stopped them.

"Why?" Pooch demanded, still holding Jensen's wrist, ready to get him home.

Clay looked at Cougar. "Did Jensen tell you where the information from GenuGlobe's hidden?"

Cougar shook his head.

"Dammit," Clay muttered, sharing a look with Aisha who seemed equally upset.

"Screw GenuGlobe," Pooch announced. "We got ParSec crawling all over this place and we're not armed to fight an army right now, so let's get out of here."

"Jensen got his ass handed to him to protect that information for us. We can't come back to this warehouse after we leave, which means if he did hide it in here somewhere then it's gone for good, and this was all for nothing," Clay explained, looking mostly at Pooch but noticing Cougar's expression had darkened as well. "I want to get him out of here too, but first we wake him up, ask him where the information is, then we go."

Pooch huffed but nodded, "Yeah, all right, but we make it quick."

Kneeling down again Pooch lightly tapped the hacker's less swollen cheek in an attempt to wake him.

"Jensen, hey man, come on, we gotta talk to you," Pooch tried to rouse him but the hacker remained unresponsive. "Jensen, wake up, Angelina Jolie's here, she needs ya, bad. Her and Meghan Fox both lost their email passwords and need your help. Jensen!"

When there was still no response Aisha shook her head and stomped through the boys, pushing Pooch aside and muttering, "Amateurs."

Pooch and Clay stepped back for her, assuming she was going to use some kind of feminine trick to wake Jensen up.

None of them expected her to dig her thumb deep into the bullet wound in the hacker's side instead.

"Ah!"

Jensen bolted awake with a scream at the same moment that Cougar lunged at Aisha, grabbing her by the throat and slamming her against the wall.

She growled in response but it was nothing compared to the fire in Cougar's eyes and the knife in his free hand that he brought dangerously close to her neck. He leaned in close to her face and whispered a warning she knew she would only get once.

"Never. Touch. Him. Again."

She smiled, showing no fear, and replied with fake innocence, "I was just trying to help."

"Don't." He told her, letting her go roughly and walking back over to Jensen with the others. She straightened her clothes and shrugged off the attack; apparently he hadn't forgiven her for shooting Jensen that one time.

"Oh god," Jensen was awake now and muttering obscenities but pulled a weak cocky smile from somewhere when he saw the rest of the team. "Hey Colonel … I can smell that, that sewer escape tunnel was … just awesome."

Even as the hacker spoke his eyes were trying to shut again as the pain drifted away.

"Hey Jensen, look at me, stay awake," Clay ordered, crouching in front of the techie and then asking very slowly. "Jensen, where's the information from GenuGlobe?"

"Nancy," he muttered, head drooping forward.

They all shared a look of confusion – Jensen had assured them all that computer had been completely destroyed.

"Jensen! You burned Nancy – you put the information somewhere else. Where?" Clay asked again.

"Don't worry. 's safe," Jensen answered hazily, his concussion and blood loss clearly catching up with him.

"Jensen! Jensen, where is it safe?" Clay demanded loudly.

The hacker's eyes were closed as he gave his final answer, "Online. Server." And then his head dropped forward into complete unconsciousness once more.

Clay reached a hand out to try to shake the hacker awake, but Cougar grabbed his wrist in mid air.

"He's done," Cougar said sternly. "It's not here."

"Yeah, okay," Clay agreed reluctantly and only then did Cougar release his wrist. "All right, get him up, we gotta get to the car without starting World War III. And then we're going to have a discussion about following orders."

"I don't think you yelling at Cougar for half an hour really qualifies as a discussion, but whatever gets us out of here," Pooch commented as he again knelt down to take one of Jensen's arms. Cougar took his other arm and Aisha led the way back out of the warehouse with Clay covering their six.

They had almost made it to the car when bullets started flying as someone in the distance clearly spotted them. Everyone crouched down and ran faster with Pooch relinquishing Jensen completely to Cougar as he had to jump in the driver's seat.

"Get us somewhere hidden or underground, now. We are in no shape to outmaneuver a Blackhawk," Clay pointed out as he helped Cougar get Jensen into the back with Aisha taking the front seat. Bullets were still landing dangerously close as they started to pull away though so Clay motioned towards the lampposts illuminating the parking lot. "Cougar, make us less of a target, will ya?"

The sniper nodded, rolled down his window and took quick aim. Two shots later glass was raining down on the street and their escape was shrouded in darkness.

As Cougar sat back down, Pooch hit a speed bump in the dark, making Jensen groan loudly even in his unconscious state. Clay sighed and patted the hacker on the back.

"Yeah, sounds about right."

* * *

An hour later they made it safely to the secondary rendezvous that Jensen was originally supposed to meet them at. Clay let Cougar get Jensen settled and properly stitched up before he tore into the sniper for not following orders and risking getting himself and Jensen killed for going in alone. Anyone else would have argued the facts with the Colonel but Cougar just sat stoic and unrepentant and let Clay burn himself out yelling until he finally dismissed Cougar with the punishment that he had to look after the hacker until he was back on his feet.

The whole team hid a smile at the idea; as though anyone other than Cougar had the patience to deal with Jensen when he was hurt.

It was another two hours before Cougar heard a moan that made him tilt his hat up and watch as their hacker blinked himself awake. Jensen had made the smallest motion towards trying to sit up when Cougar pushed a hand gently onto his chest.

"Don't. You can't feel it but you're hurt," he warned the techie.

Jensen blinked again then smiled.

"Hey Cougs," then he looked down and saw his chest was heavily bandaged and there was an IV dripping something into his veins. "Morphine! Awesome! I thought I felt … awesome."

"You won't when we run out," Cougar mused but Jensen waved him off.

"Don't ruin my high, man."

Cougar chuckled softly and asked, "Online server?"

"Hmm?" Jensen answered, turning to look at Cougar with his unswollen eye, then seemed to remember something. "Oh, the GenuGlobe stuff. Yeah, I saved it online. I have a private online server to save files so I don't have to switch them from computer to computer. They're just there, on the internet, whenever I need them. It's pretty cool. And if someone ever goes looking, well, good luck to them sorting out my filing system. It's based on a language I invented when I was ten."

Cougar nodded, his way of saying, yes, that is cool, now go back to sleep. But Jensen's drug addled mind was still babbling.

"Yep, right there, on the web, the internet, the wave, the signal. Always right there for me," Jensen muttered, eyes clearly getting heavy, but he managed to turn to Cougar and smile briefly. "Kind of like you. Thanks man."

The hacker was asleep by the time Cougar made it to the window and whispered, "De nada."

The end.

Abrupt I know, but I didn't want to drag out the non-action parts. Hope you enjoyed and if you want to look at this as pre-slash Cougar/Jensen go right ahead, because even though I set out writing this as Gen, these two seemed to just gravitate together naturally, without my consent.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Hope it's been fun!


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